Another Week, Come and Gone!

During breaks in the rain, a few things happened outdoors. The squirrel picnic table was installed. It took the "tree rats" (as a friend calls them) about overnight to find the "picnic."

The next day: picked clean. The squirrels even cleaned up after themselves, gathering up all the corn that fell onto the ground.

The vegetable and herb pot is producing tomatoes. They're small, Siam Mini Tomatoes.

The hydrangea bushes in the front of the house are blooming nicely and growing, too.

We finally have some apples, after three years in the ground. I'll go out on a limb (tee-hee) and say that the birds are going to love them.

The birds should love the strawberries, too. This one is about 1" long. There are quite a few. I hope they leave us one or two to pay us for our work.

I finished Pippa's Stripy Pullover. I published a revision to the original pattern (Pauly's Stripy Pullover) to make the ribbing tidy. I had forgotten that you have to knit one row/round of the ribbing color before starting the ribbing. Otherwise the top of the ribbing appears in the other color.

All the blocks in the T-shirt quilt are sewn together with the sashing. Just the borders to go, and the top will be finished.

The quilt would go together faster, but I have to keep an eye on Rocky when Charlie is out in the yard. Now that the weather is nicer, he likes to go outdoors, too, and walk around. Someone has to supervise him, though, because he can barely see or hear, and occasionally he collapses on the ground and can't get up again. He has a hard time getting down the stairs from the deck, and he can't get back up them, so we have put up a baby gate to keep him on the deck unless we're out in the yard to watch. I put him out on the grass in the morning for ten minutes while I fix the dogs' breakfast. Then I put him out several times during the day. I have to go get him, because he can't find his way back. (He never did have a very good sense of direction.) Rocky  just visited the groomer on Friday. It's still cool, so he wears one of his fleece jackets until his hair grows back in a bit. I'm so glad he survived long enough to enjoy some nice weather again.

 

The Doll's Storybook just reached four years. I thought about taking some time off, but the stories keep coming to me and I have to write them down. I have a post that lists all the stories, starting with the first one on June 22, 2018, along with the links to each one. The way the blog is organized, it's hard to find the earlier stories otherwise. There are 209 of them, one each Friday. I've been starting to think about another published book, perhaps one with all the classic stories and fairy tales, retold as only the dolls can tell them.  

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for "Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart" in Children's. Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of our first book, Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, it would help if you left an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them.

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: Finished Pippa's Stripy Pullover. A few more rows done on the Hinterland Pullover. Soon it will be long enough for the ribbing. No progress on the emPower People Kerchief.

What's on my loom: No progress on the Trailer Rugs, but I'll be needing them soon, so....

What's on my sewing machine: Still the T-shirt quilt.

What's in my hoop: No progress on the Whole Cloth Quilt.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: In this week's story, The Perils of Pauly and Pippa, Pippa finds out that she has had an advantage over Pauly by coming into a family of other dolls who know what kinds of things are dangerous. She teaches Pauly all the things you have to watch out for, including how to cross the street.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to The Woman Who Smashed Codes by Jason Fagone on the Audible app.  

What's in my wine glass: La Crima Purpura again, "Vino Tinto Seco" (Dry Red Wine) from Spain, notes of cherry, but dry.

What's my tip of the week: If you weigh your yarn before you start on a project, then weigh how much you have left when you're done, it will tell you how much you used. It's better than weighing the finished project afterwards, which might have several different kinds of yarn and perhaps some buttons. It also will take into account any tails you trim off after weaving in at the end. (High humidity can make yarn weigh more.)

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with few changes. Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is now available for preorder from booksellers world wide. The link for Book Baby is here. The three stories are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is also available. The three stories in the first book are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less. 

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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Things That Grow.

More mushrooms are sprouting. Here's Sunday afternoon:

They started becoming visible Saturday morning. This morning they looked like this.

I spent a good part of the week working on my book from The Doll's Storybook. Here's a screen shot of the cover in the Pages layout.

I'm planning to include three stories featuring Mariah: "Being Little," "Besties" and "Distraction." I think the book will be about 60+ pages. I'm looking into self-publishing. The tricky part will be how to get the proceeds to go directly to a charity that supports pediatric cancer. I've approached another charity. I hope to hear something soon, because I would like to include the wording about which charity is getting the support.

Because of the work on the layout, I didn't get much knitting done, but the Jenny Cable Jumper for Jolena is coming along slowly. I had to frog the yoke three times (not all the way back, but just a few rows) because I dropped stitches where the increases were made and couldn't figure out how to pick them up again.

Church services are still online, and I found out Sunday morning that the bishop has decided that we will stay online until after Labor Day, which is probably a good idea. However, the choir met (via Zoom) on Wednesday evening. We are going to try to do a virtual choir performance that can be shared as a tribute to our local first responders.

As you know, mushrooms and sprouts aren't the only things we're growing. Our strawberries are coming along.

The peas are about 6" high now. DH built a lattice of string for them to climb.

We've always had good luck with zucchini. (The hardest part is picking them in time. You go to bed one night thinking they are almost big enough only to wake up to zucchinis big enough to use to beat off a bear.)

The blueberry bushes are thriving, but we won't have a big crop the first year. Still, they will be a nice treat.

I'm really looking forward to the chard, though, and it isn't in the ground yet. 

We also have winter squash (butternut, I think), eggplant, tomatoes and pepper plants. They are growing slowly. The nights are still pretty cool here.

What's on my needles: The pullover for Jolena, Jenny Cable Jumper by Tanya Dubinina.

What's on my sewing machine: Put away for now.

What's in my hoop: Still the Whole Cloth Quilt. Another week with no progress.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: "Cats and Dogs," in which Freckles and Marmalade talk about the dolls.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Finished The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow, which was excellent. I have another book by this author on my Audible wish list. Now listening to The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith (a.k.a. J. K. Rowling).

What's in my wine glass: Another Colossal Reserva from Casa Santos Lima. We have several bottles. It's pretty good.

What's my tip of the week: An old pair of pantyhose or nylon stocking can be used to make a great yarn sock. I pushed my newly-wound ball of yarn into the foot of the pantyhose, then cut the foot/leg off the right length (as for the two on the left). For the third ball of yarn, I knotted it first (right).

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

Growing Things

My Covid-19 Rewilding Shawl is growing....

And growing....

The eyelet section is a little more interesting, although the garter section has been fun to do, because the increases and decreases along the edges kept it from being too boring.

Other things are growing, too. You may remember that I received my Golden Oyster Mushroom Kit from NorthSpore.com the same day as my 25-pound (!) bag of rye flour. That was Wednesday, May 20th. I started the kit right away. You remove the front panel on the box of the kit, spray with tap water, using the little spray bottle that comes with the kit and put it on the kitchen counter, spraying at least twice a day, or more if you're in a dry climate. There wasn't much to see by the time I wrote my last blog post, so I didn't include a photo, but by a week later, it looked like this.

Here's Thursday, May 28.

Then all you-know-what broke loose and the stuff started to grow. Here's Friday, May 29.

Saturday, May 30.

....and then....

I bought the kit on impulse without doing any research. Since I've had it, though, I've done a little reading. It seems I lucked out on on choice of variety. This type of oyster mushrooms does best at room temperature (65-86ºF), which we have been able to count on here. We'll see how it does in the 5th wheel when nights are likely to be cooler. Harvest from when the first "pins" (mushroom buds) appear is supposed to be 2-5 days. It took a week for any action other than the white bloom that appeared after a few days. We should be able to harvest by later today.
More photos next week.

We're camping now with our 5th wheel (photos next week), so I had to take the mushrooms along. They will be ready soon. The sprouts are coming along, too, but I made some sourdough wheat bread on Saturday, so I wouldn't have to take the starter along. It can go a week between feedings. I feed it every time I make bread with it.

The lilacs are really lovely now. I took a photo of one bunch of each color in situ. Here's the white.

Here's the purple. They smell lovely.

The strawberry plants we (DH) transplanted from the other side of the yard have been growing as well, and now they have blossoms.

We had to move them last year when we put in the pad for trailer storage. Rocky is photo-bombing the strawberries. His main job, however, is to be one of my throw rugs.

DH has been repairing the bear house, which was damaged when we moved. The grandkids are really pretty careful with it, but pieces had been falling off. Now that it has been glued back together, all it needs is for the flower boxes to be replanted. (The original ones were removed by Zachary when he was too young to know better.)

The Oregon grands plan to come next month to visit. They had planned a trip to Norway, Sweden and Finland, but the virus took care of that. They are coming here instead. We'll stay away from other people for two weeks before, and they will do the same. Then we'll be careful when they are here.

We missed the Zoom meeting with the kids and grandkids on Sunday, because we were already on the road. They organized it on their own, though, and I expect to hear that all went well.

What's on my needles: The Rewilding Shawl.

What's on my sewing machine: Sitting idle.

What's in my hoop: Still the Whole Cloth Quilt. Another week with no progress.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: Bear. It's about original work, some imagination and dealing with a bully.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Listening to The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow.

What's in my wine glass: Montevina Zinfandel 2016 Amador County. Excellent, especially with Thai food.

What's my tip of the week: We keep a word-processing document with a checklist of the things we need to be sure we take with us when we travel with our 5th wheel. I cross items off as they go into the trailer. That way we don't find ourselves stuck miles from home missing medication or a toothbrush, but also we can be sure we have dishwashing liquid and the hearing-aid chargers.

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.